Bittersweet Scars
by Dixie Cross
Summary: Re-post. What if Bonnie had not woken up that night Scarlett waited up for Rhett? An "almost near miss" I have often wondered about in the book. One-shot.


_Disclaimer: I do not own any rights, characters, etc. of GWTW_

_Note: I never intended to take this down. It sort of happened by accident. I noticed it needed some edits (e.g. Undo, not undue. Homophones are my bitterest frenemies.) and accidently deleted it instead of editing it. _

_A Moment of Concern and Candor_

Scarlett stood on the landing feeling suddenly exposed. It was not so much because Rhett was lightly laughing at her, almost mocking her really. No, that was a welcome change from the polite, distant stranger he had been ever since she returned from Tara. She had been so anxious about his late nights and odd Old Guard visitors that she had been convinced he was involved with the foolish Klan, just like Frank had been. The strain of worry had finally pulled her from her bedroom when she had heard his swift footfalls tread up the stairs. But now that he had allayed her fears—and restored her faith in his insincerity—she no longer had her worry to distract her, or protect her.

"Is that all Mrs. Butler?" Rhett asked, the casual apathy layering his tone once more.

She stared at him. She had wanted to bring up Bonnie, but not now. She would do it later, tomorrow, perhaps; when she was not standing in her wrapper, on these stairs, the stairs that she now unconsciously and consciously avoided.

"Yes, thank you," she muttered, crossing her arms as she tugged her night robe tighter.

Rhett watched her closely; his eyes heavy with a silent dare for her to broach the subject of their recent past. As the noiseless seconds edged by, the moment came and went and the dare faded from his face.

"Very well, my pet," he drawled.

He started to move past her, but paused abruptly as he came parallel with her shoulders, and leaning in almost whispered, "Cheer up, I'll find some other way to blacken the Butler name, and with any luck, it will give you the out you want."

Scarlett tensed and whipped her head around to face him. He drew back at her wild expression, twitching with anger and something he could only analyze as pain.

"How dare you," she rasped. "How dare you use those words!"

Real regret flitted across Rhett's swarthy features, transforming his implacability into sorrow. Echoing in both their minds were his words, "Cheer up, maybe you'll have a miscarriage." Ghosts of that last fateful argument played out again before their eyes as they stood near the sight of the accident: the cracking sound and writhing fall of Scarlett's body against the stairs, the quiet dread that came with her last pathetic thud onto the floor and Rhett's hurried, frightened descent, believing she was dead.

With no hint of his former mockery or recent unconcern, he nearly pled, "I'm sorry Scarlett. I wasn't thinking when—"

"You're sorry?" She interrupted, struggling to control the whirl of tears and rage threatening to overwhelm her. Yet, containment was futile, and Scarlett vaguely realized it. Rhett's careless words, said half in jest and half in a bitterness he had buried since the fall, had unraveled her mind and untied her tongue. And it felt liberating, intoxicating to unburden her wrath onto the man who had so glibly killed the one baby she had wanted. The stinging tears were already starting to fall as she accused him.

"Sorry for what? Sorry for being a cad? Sorry for leaving me for weeks? Sorry for calling me a whore when you returned? Or are you possibly sorry for murdering my baby?"

Scarlett choked out the last vicious accusation in a strangled, strained sob. Rhett had not moved, had not even breathed it seemed, and she could not see his face through the veil of tears. "I cannot stay here with him," she wordlessly lamented. He was a silent, unfeeling mystery to her. But she was trapped in a prison of her own grief. The release of her anger had been a temporary deliverance, ultimately condemning her to feel only pain and sorrow. Her head dropped into her hands, her body bent over in a debilitating sadness for the child she had lost, the child she had not really allowed herself to mourn.

And then in the darkness of despair she felt strong arms lift her falling form, rocking her and caressing her. She sensed rather than saw that they had entered her bedroom, felt but did not look up when he sat down on the large chair in her room, cradling her as he used to do when she would awake from a bad dream. He was whispering nonsense, soothing her with sounds and softness. Rhett could be so gentle, so kind, and Scarlett allowed her heart to break for the baby they had lost.

In the dimness of her anguish, she at last realized that she was not alone. Rhett was not only comforting her—he too was mourning. His chest, so broad and inviting and safe, was heaving in silent sobs. Scarlett opened her eyes and stared first at his trembling chest, and gradually moved her focus up his damp neck, over his clenched jaw and into his wet, black eyes. Slowly, Scarlett raised a hand and in gentle awe traced the bright, pale rivulets of tears that glistened down his bronze cheeks. Until this moment, she never thought Rhett could cry, or that there could be anything, perhaps aside from Bonnie, that he cared about enough to cry over. Had he lied when he asked her who the father was? Looking into his sad, wary face she knew the answer.

Despite her experiences and age, Scarlett was still such a child in understanding, and with childish ignorance and forthrightness she wondered aloud, "Why, Rhett? Why did you laugh and say those hurtful things? Why did you say the baby wasn't yours? You knew it was."

Closing his eyes, he exhaled his reply, a question of his own, "Why did you say you didn't want the baby, Scarlett? You so clearly did."

The prickling sensation of irritation began to poke her again. She had just opened her heart to him, and he had behaved so sweetly, but now he was souring their momentary peace with his own bitter question. Why did she think, even briefly, he could be anything but mean and nasty to her? Were even his tears some sick joke?

Scarlett started to angrily push away from him, but he grabbed her wrists and forced her back down, keeping his iron clasp on her.

"No Scarlett, I'm not going to make it so easy on you. Not after this, not now. You call me out, call me a murderer, and I take it. I may have run out on you before, but I'll be a fool if I let you run out on me tonight."

There was a depth of feeling in his voice that she could not resist, did not want to resist, and so she stopped fighting. For the first time in her marriage, in her life really, she wanted to understand another human being. She wanted to understand Rhett. She needed him, she was realizing. It was a realization that had started to dawn on the dark, early morning when he had shared that chaotic rapture with her, and she had gloried in it. It was a need she had felt, but denied while she lay ill wracked with pain and loss. It was something she forced to become dormant, but was reawakening in her tonight as she cried into his strong embrace. With hungry curiosity, Scarlett looked into those depthless eyes, willing them to reveal the source of his fervor, but she read nothing. Who was he? This man that she needed, but did not know.

Resigned, but unsatisfied she asked, "Why do you want to know? Why do you care?"

Rhett's unfathomable eyes flickered with something she had not seen since the accident.

"Answer my question first," he nearly smirked.

Scarlett looked away and thought, for it seemed a lifetime ago. Rhett was patient now that she was still, his hands loosened ever so slightly, though he did not release his hold. Finally, she mumbled hesitatingly, "I wanted someone to love. I wanted my own Bonnie. But when you came home, you were so mean. So I said I didn't want your baby."

It sounded lame and callous even to her unperceptive ears. But, her pride had left with her anger. She knew lying would be useless in any case—he always called her out on it. Perhaps her honesty would be returned by him. Perhaps he would talk to her like a person, and not treat her like a pet or a pariah. Perhaps his tears had been sincere.

"Darling, will you look at me?"

She could not fully comprehend why such a simple request could seem so difficult. She did not understand because she had only ever put herself in this position once before—with Ashley when she had confessed her love, yet even then it had been different, she had been different. And she had so much more to lose should she see mocking or cruelty in Rhett's eyes now. For, she had allowed him to see her weak and vulnerable. Relying on the remains of her battered down bravery, she turned her face toward Rhett. What she saw gave her hope.

The flickering light in his eyes had become a steady flame as he asked, "Scarlett, did you ever wonder why I never came to your bed while you were sick?"

She shook her head. Had she wondered? Not really, she had been too lost in an isolation brought on by ripping, tearing pain, and loss. And she knew Rhett did not want her or her baby.

Rhett sounded more hesitant, the edge of his voice starting to be etched with its former resentment, "You never wondered?"

She felt like she needed to explain, and calling up her last reserves of coherency and courage, said, "I wanted you, but I didn't think you wanted me, or the baby."

Her words left a wounded expression on Rhett's still tear-stained face. She again was struck by the wonder of seeing him so exposed, so human. It was as unnerving as it was captivating.

Cursing under his breath, Rhett replied, "You really never understand anything unless it is spelled out for you. No, do not interrupt, I am not upbraiding you or insulting you, or even teasing you, really. I am merely commenting on the wonders of your mind. Scarlett, you can't have forgotten the number of times I have told you I wanted you more than any other woman? Or how much I love the one child you have given me, or even the children you have had with other men? You can't—"

He hesitated, as though steeling himself to say more, and Scarlett, mesmerized by the enigmatic, fervent tone of his address remained silent. "You can't have forgotten that night I carried you upstairs—to here, to the room you had banished me from?"

Scarlett blushed. She had thought about that night only moments ago. How could she ever forget that night? Even the anger and abandonment she had endured after his desertion or the loss of the baby from that union could not completely undo the sweet recollection of that night. True it had been dimmed, but never eclipsed.

Rhett was still holding her wrists, though it was a tender touch now. As she shook her head, still blushing, he dropped his gaze, and turned over her wrists. Lovingly, he kissed one wrist and then the other. It was the first time he had kissed her since the night they were talking about, and just as the first time he had kissed her arms, so long ago on Aunt Pity's porch in the heat of a siege and summer, she underwent a mad urge to run her fingers through his raven, crisp hair. The electricity of his mouth on her soft skin was pushing away the grief that had brought them back together, and making her forget her sorrows and herself.

She heard him mumble, "Well at least that's still the same, I had begun to wonder."

And then Rhett laughed, it was not a happy laugh, or a mean laugh, but the laugh of a madman finally set free from the asylum.

Startled by his sudden shift in mood, Scarlett instinctively jerked her hands away.

"Rhett, I—"

But her words were cut short as Rhett's full, demanding lips covered her mouth. It was the same hot, dark, brutal passion from before, when he had made her experience true ecstasy. But this time, she was prepared for the savagery and completeness of his desire, and tried to match it.

It had not been a dream; this enveloping wild thrill. Rhett's mouth traveled down her jaw and explored the softness of her throat, as Scarlett glided her fingers through his hair and whispered his name. His hands slid underneath her wrapper, and lifting her in one fluid movement, he carried her to the bed. He laid her down, leaning over and onto her body.

As his mouth poised above her eager lips, he declared, "I have always wanted you Scarlett O'Hara."

But that was not what she had wanted to hear. Disappointment washed over her, cooling the fire of their embrace. Violently she shoved Rhett away and sat up. He was crouched kneeling on the bed his hands flexing and unflexing in evident frustration. They stared at each other: Rhett's body heaving with desire and confusion, and Scarlett shaking with humiliation and fury.

It was Rhett's turn to wonder, and he growled, "Is this to punish me? Do not think you can play the vixen now, my pet."

Vixen? She heard the insult but it barely registered in her aching mind. He only wanted her body, when she thought his words had meant something so much more, when she thought she had meant something so much more to him. It had already been a long and exhausting night.

Anger, hurt, and disappointment overtook her senses and she blurted out, "I don't want you! I love you!"

Scarlett covered her mouth. She had told him she loved him. She had never thought so before, but she could not take it back either. The moment the declaration burst from her lips, she could not deny its truthfulness. She loved him. It was as clear and obvious to her now as it had been unknown and unasked a moment ago. Whatever she had felt for Ashley had died, she sensed, long ago. Rhett was the man she needed, the man she loved. She had already crumpled before him like a rag doll, and he had treated her with more sincerity and gentleness than she had ever received from him before. "Well, he might be mean about this," she thought, "but no matter it is the truth and I won't be ashamed of it."

With a proud, fragile defiance, she lifted her chin.

Rhett started to laugh again, the same crazed laugh from only minutes before. He moved back towards her on the bed, resting his hands on her slender shoulders and shook them slightly as he chuckled, "Scarlett, I could kiss your feet right now, if you let me, and perhaps I shall even if you tell me no."

She watched, still defiant and more than a little curious at his reaction, as he bent over and lightly pecked the tops of her feet. Rhett was playing a joke on her.

"You don't have to be mean Rhett. I tell you I love you and you only laugh at me, like it's one of your funny, nasty barbs. Especially after I—after we talked about my illness." Her pride utterly crumbled as she mentioned their tender shared grief, and she felt on the verge of tears for the second time during this endless night.

Rhett placed his hands back on her shoulders and there was no mirth in his voice, but something so much finer and deeper as he spoke, commanding her with his sincerity to look at him.

"I am sorry, my dear, my darling wife. Scarlett, do you know how long I have waited to hear you say those words? Years—since my blockading days when I could not stay away, since after the war when you were married to a man I am sure I would have killed had he not died when he did, since I married you knowing you did so because you were fond of me and my money. And since that night when I could not stop myself from having you, when I thought my hope was true. But I was too much of a coward to face you."

His voice grew dark and painful as he haltingly confessed and Scarlett was once again drawn into his tale, relishing in his candor.

"I was shaking in my boots the day I came home. I was so happy to learn you were having another baby, but I was insane with jealousy. And then I hurt you. And I waited for you to call me, but you never did." His face showed the marks of a tortured man as he continued, "I thought then it was over, that whatever future we could have shared had been destroyed by my cowardice and cruelty. Your lashing of me tonight was nothing but what I had already castigated myself with. I may not have pushed you down the stairs, but I might as well have."

"No Rhett, don't say that. I was hurting, I was angry. It's not your fault, not really." The bitterness of his self-incrimination had broken Scarlett's spellbound silence.

"You don't need to humor me, Scarlett. I resolved I would become the polite, indifferent acquaintance you have known for the last few weeks. I would never again allow my feelings for you to destroy me, or you, or anyone else. And so I have been pouring all my love for you into our daughter. She's so like you—like you before the war and hunger had done things to you. But, there was a difference between you two; that until this night I never thought would be changed. She loves me, too."

He caressed the last word with wonder and delight, and the torturous note in his voice was replaced by a vibration of joy. He lightly skimmed his fingers along her cheek.

"Scarlett, we are so alike. We were meant for each other, our fate has always been as plain to me as the selfishness which neither of us bothers to hide. I have done everything I could to show you how I feel, without telling you because you can be so brutal, so cruel to those who give you their hearts. None of this matters now, though."

Leaning in, Rhett's black eyes bore into her brilliant green ones, and his voice nearly broke as he declared, "I love you, Scarlett O'Hara, and always have."

Scarlett could not breathe. A shattering joy started to break away the hard shell surrounding her heart, the casing falling to the wayside from the dual forces of her expressed grief and newfound understanding with Rhett. She could not even feel irritated that he had withheld such a declaration from her, because he was right—they were so alike. Brash, selfish, and earthy—renegades the both of them. But now that he was being truthful, now that he was talking to her as one person talks to another, she knew their love could grow and become strong.

"Oh, my poor darling!" Scarlett began to cry and reached out her hand to touch his face, in her first genuine show of affection toward him. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Rhett."

Rhett caught her hand, and pressed it against his hard cheek.

"Scarlett, darling, we are well past the time and place where apologies matter or can do any good. I do not believe in picking up the pieces of our broken life. But, I do believe we can make something more beautiful and lasting with its shattered remains. We still have Bonnie. And now we have each other."

He was right. They could never erase the past. Scarlett's scar and pain of her miscarriage would never fully fade, just as the South would never fully recover from the loss of so many lives. But tonight, in their honesty sprung from the well of grief, they had found a place to begin to heal.

As if reading her mind, Rhett teased, "I was not joking when I told you that heaven better help the man who loves you."

"But darling, you don't believe in heaven," Scarlett interjected, no longer caring that she was crying as she saw her feelings reflected in the man before her. The man who was no longer a stranger, a truth she accepted as readily as a young girl accepts the teachings of her parents.

Rhett laughed, tears of relief and contentment sliding down his suddenly tired, but peaceful face, "Well, no, honey, but we've put each other through hell, so I'll be damned if I don't get a little piece of heaven here for all my struggles."

He hungrily drew Scarlett into a kiss, each tasting the bittersweet saltiness of the other's tears.


End file.
